Patrick: "Winning is not Enough."

by Christopher Coletta

"I think we all understand that Mitt Romney's leadership is bad," said Deval Patrick, Democratic Candidate for Governor, of the Republican. "He travels the country making us the butt of his joke." Patrick criticized the governor for being "missing-in-action" during the recent floods in Greenfield and Pittsfield, and he claimed that Romney only showed up to the Taunton Dam crisis having been embarassed by press for not showing up in Greenfield.

Patrick said Romney "governs by press conference and photo-op, and not by folow through and results."

Patrick crafted for the conference delegates his overarching vision for being governor of Massachusetts, saying that "it's not enough to win. We must offer more than to replace bad leadership with ordinary leadership - we must offer creative leadership and vision."

At the very end of his time addressing the convention, theatrics ensued when a group of about 30 anti-war protestors gathered just inside the Student Union Ballroom to address Patrick, and to express their dissatisfaction to the gubernatorial candidate that the Democratic Party has not wholly embraced the mantle of the anti-war movement.

An Experienced Leader

He described himself as being a "leader in government at the highest levels. "I lead the largest criminal investigation in United States History before 9/11, managing the responses of the justice department, the FBI, the ATF, FEMA, HUD and HSS, in response to attacks on black churches and synegogues in The South. I know how to make government work." Deval Patrick was appointed by President Clinton as Deputy U.S. Attorney General in charge of Civil Rights in 1993.

Partick also cited his experience as a senior executive in two different Fortune 100 companies, Texaco and Coca-Cola. "I've managed thousands of people and hundreds of millions of dollars across several continents ... and I know how businesses make their decisions."

He also cited his experience growing up poor on welfare in Chicago, where he shared a room with his mother and sister in a two-bedroom tenement with his grandparents. "I know what it's like to work your way up," he said, and this is how he knows "how vital it is to give someone else a reason to hope."

"No other candidate from either party that has that kind of leadership and life experience," he said.

Stem cell research and public higher ed: "Two goals with one bold stroke"

Patrick cited statistics saying that Massachusetts was only state to lose population in 2004 - and that most are young people leaving for lack of job opportunities and the high cost of housing.

He criticized previous administrations who have "governed for the next election cycle - and it seems like Romney governs for the next news cycle, leaving our long term interest in peril." He observed that Massachusetts is 47th in the nation in spending on higher education, behind Mississippi.

Smaller classes, longer school days, and after-school programs that make sense and connect to the academic program, are all investments the candidate wants to make, in addition to early-childhood education opportunities.

Patrick spoke at length about his plan to invest in higher education with emphasis on stem cell research. He plans to issue state bonds to finance stem cell research as other states have, but to go further and invest proceeds from bonds in the public universities.

Citing the death of his mother suffering from Lupus, and his mother-in-law suffering from Alzheimer's and Diabetes, Patrick said, "you can't watch the suffering of someone you love and not appreciate the humanitarian importance of stem cell research."

But he also observed that stem cell research is important for our economy, citing Massachusetts' 30,000 employees working in the biotech industry, and that they accounted for half the net growth of industrial jobs in the state.

"Unlike other kids of industries like textile that move to where labor is cheaper, development of products coming from stem cell research stays right here."

Patrick frames his candidacy: "Counteract the Cynicism."

Deval Patrick hammered home the main theme of his campaign, that his candidacy is meant to be a counter-offensive against the pervasive disengagement of people and their government. He emphasized listening to constituents, saying "I want to bring your good common sense solutions to the solutions that government brings to bear to help you help yourselves."

But he went further chastizing some in his own party. "While Democrats perfect the the debate among themselves about "how to get elected," there is a clear alternative vision that is spreading - and that's a vision that says government is bad." He decried the trend in which the public thinks the government exists only to advance a few special interest groups, that government employees aren't competent, "and that all of us, but especially poor people, are on our own."

"And that is the vision of government on display in the aftermath of Huricane Katrina ... All the those people abandoned on those rooftops after Katrina were abandoned before that storm ... It is these types of people that are waiting while the Democraic Party tries to decide what it stands for," he said. "Let's stop arguing about the difference between the right and the left, and start arguing about the difference between the right and the wrong."

Patrick seeks to build a bridge to those people who are "the cynic, the skeptic, chronically discouraged, who have checked out, given up on civic life and on politics ... all the folks who, when they see a politician moving his or her lips they assume that person is lying." He called on conference-goers to "invest in a vision of goverment and community that reflects the best in what we have and who we are."

"If you vote for tactics and money, and connections, and the same ol' people doing the same ol' thing, I'm not gonna win. Probably Mitt Romney or Kerry Heally will win."

"But if you vote your aspirations, I win. And so do you."

Massachusetts as a Renewable Energy Leader, smart-growth case study.

During the question and answer section, Patrick took the opportunity to express support for the proposed windfarm on Nantucket Sound, opining that Massachusetts needs to show leadership as a state in this area, as well as build up a knowledge base and expertise with respect to renewable energy technologies. "The whole world could be our customer," he said. Patrick also said that since the supply of oil worldwide is disappearing and that the supply is volitile, that it makes economic sense to diversify our energy portfolio.

Patrick remarked that the wind farm suppling three-fourths of the electrical needs of the Cape and the Islands is a significant contribution, but "it's not enough, and we need to do more."

In the short term, he advocated conservation measures citing a whole portfoliio of incentives, as well as using the "bully pulpit" to ask people to view as energy conservation as important.

Deval Patrick stated he was looking into ways to facilitate residential energy conservation devices like solar heaters, putting them within reach of regular people by dealing with the front end cost of investment. "It pays for itself over time," he said, "but if you don't have the upfront cash, it doesn't happen."

He does not support a gas tax roll back to counteract the rising price of gasoline, citing that in Europe the cost for gasoline is a third more than the price here.

Patrick's plan for environmental stewardship includes implementing "smart growth" or "transit-oriented growth" - an example of really good ideas that he credits the current Romney administration for pursuing.

Patrick also said that he doesn't have a magic bullet for the issue of affordable housing, but that one trend he noticed was the low rate of multi-familty house starts in Massachusetts. He proposed simplyifyng the multi-family house permiting and approval process, or providing for a pre-permitting process.

Patrick takes principled stance against National Guard Ballot Initiative.

Candidate Patrick said he would use power of public leadership to advocate for a prompt end of war withdrawl of troops from Iraq. However he would not call for the return of the Massachusetts National Guard. He explained that when Central High School in Littel Rock, Arkansas needed to be racially integrated in the 1950, President Eisenhower "federalized" the National guard in order to desegreatgte that school. The case involving the legality of that action went all the way up the Supreme Court, which affirmed the right of the president to do that, and Patrick added "I think that was the right result, and I say that as a civil rights lawyer. I won't do anything that calls that precedent into question"

First, the "Health Care For All" Bill, then work towards Single Payer.

Our healthcare system is broken, said Patrick. "Every single stake holder has a reason to come to the table."

Patrick said he supports the bill circulating in the Massachusetts Legislature known as the "Health Care For All Bill," which calls for an expansion in elegibility for the current Massachusetts healthcare plan, as well as mandates by law requiring employers to pick up more responsibility in providing healthcare to workers - a provision which he characterized as "emanantly fair."

And yet even though these are "tangible" results, Patrick said that it was not enough to deal with the massive inefficiency inherent in the system, and he advocated for Single Payer universal healthcare as the end goal.
I don't believe we'll be able to get to single payer in one step.

"The proposals on the hill don't go far enough in containing cost." Patrick threw out the idea of pooling catastrophic care in one statewide pool, "because that's the most expensive care, and we get the economies of scale by having more people in a single pool." He estimated that there was a 6-26% potential savings which should be passed on to premium payters. Electonic data management of medical records was also a way Patrick cited as reducing overhead. "We spend 30 cents on every buck managing the system, mostly moving the records around."

Finally, he praised the neighborhood community health center model as a means to increase access to healthcare.

On Public Higher Education

In response to a comment from the audience about the UMass Amherst administration dismantling programs aimed at helping minority students, as well as encouraging privatization in some aspects of the campus, Patrick responded that he believed that "the management of public higher ed is not exactly the same as what we expect in private higher ed, because it does have to be about casting as broad a net as possible and making a way for poeple to move forward and to move up."

On Merit Pay for teachers:

On the issue of merit pay for teachers, he said that that makes sense in principle to pay the best teachers more, but he admitted he doesn't know the best way to do that. "Everybody knows who the high performing teacher is, who the soul of the school is. And the problem is you want to encourage the collaboration within the school, between the stronger teachers and the other teachers, and you don't want to put in a compensation system that discourages that."

One solution to this that he offered was to perhaps reward the highest performing schools rather than just an individual teacher.

On Charter Schools

Deval Patrick said he liked the laboratory that charter schools are supposed to be, and the innovation that comes from charter schools. He said that the Horace Mann charter school framework seemed to be the best framework to him. Patrick expressed concern that charter schools drain resources from district schools, where most poeple get their ed.

"The Mason school gets the same disbursement as any other public school," he said of the Roxbury pilot school, citing it as an example of his vision for schools that sucessfully educate the whole child. "I felt like I was walking through my own education policy." He liked that the typical class size was eight. Classes began around 7:30 and ended around 3, at which time the children participate in academically-related after school activities. "Their MCAS scores are off the charts, and that's because they have enough time in the classroom. "

A dialog about length of schoool year was something Patrick sought out among the stakeholders. He also made the comment that it is "a mistake to continue to rely on the property tax to fund education."

"Education is not about employment training but about preparing for citizen participation."